Using Self-Esteem To Fix Society's Ills

By LENA WILLIAMS

Published: March 28, 1990

IT is being called a vaccine against drug abuse, teen-age pregnancy, welfare dependency and other social ills. But some experts are calling it little more than yet another ''feel good'' approach to life's travails.

At issue is the age-old concept of self-esteem, defined by the Second College Edition of Webster's New World Dictionary as ''belief or pride in oneself.'' But the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility reported recently that there's a lot more to it than that.

Make people feel better about themselves and the whole nation will benefit: that is the message of the task force, a 25-member commission of unpaid volunteers formed in 1986 to explore self-esteem among Californians. Employees will then become more productive, teen-agers will be less destructive, crime will decrease and welfare recipients will move toward financial self-sufficiency.

There are few scientific data to buttress this view, nor is there agreement on how self-esteem is nurtured, harmed or rehabilitated. Skeptics are also concerned that the emphasis on self-esteem glosses over deep social problems and the necessity for more complex solutions. Nonetheless, the self-esteem movement is taking hold across the country.

Hundreds of school districts have added self-esteem motivational materials to their curriculums. American employers have turned increasingly to consultants who say they can raise employees' morale and work performance through self-esteem techniques. New companies have formed, devoted to teaching on self-esteem themes, and hundreds of books on self-esteem and self-enhancement have been published.

At a recent daylong self-esteem seminar in Sacramento run by Jack Canfield, a former schoolteacher and the founder of Self-Esteem Seminars in Los Angeles, 30 teachers were led through a series of motivational exercises that began with the students massaging their classmates' shoulders, to relax the group and create a bond.

Then, in small groups, they did ''E.R.O.'' exercises: they made up events (E), demonstrated their responses (R) and explained the outcomes (O) that would arise from their responses. They were also encouraged to recall successes in their lives dating from childhood or to describe the highlights of their lives in five minutes. The teachers attending the seminar use the techniques with their own students.

''It's pretty intense,'' said Mr. Canfield. Each seminar runs about seven hours and includes video and audiotapes as well as kinesthetics. ''All of these exercises are the foundations of raising self-esteem and building strength.'' In addition to California, 10 states are considering establishing self-esteem task forces.

''It's been a remarkable shift in this movement since I first got involved in 1984,'' said John Vasconcellos, the California Assemblyman who sponsored the bill to establish the task force. He attributed the growing interest to widespread frustration. ''People are exasperated,'' he said. ''Nothing else has worked, so they're willing to listen to new proposals.''

The things done in the name of self-esteem can take many forms:

* Students in social studies and English in San Antonio are being graded not only on subject matter, but also honesty, truthfulness, kindness, courage and conviction.

* Recovering alcoholics and drug users in Philadelphia are practicing breathing techniques said to ease stress, depression and anxiety, which can badly damage self-esteem.

* Welfare mothers in Cumberland County in New Jersey are consulting I.A.L.A.C. flashcards (the acronym stands for I Am Lovable and Capable). The cards were developed by Mr. Canfield.

* Selected prisoners in California are mapping out productive incarcerations with ''facilitators'' and videotaped lectures on goals.

In his self-esteem course at Apollo High School in Simi Valley, Calif., Geoff Schofield was taught such maxims as, ''It doesn't matter what you do, but who you are.''

''It helped me a great deal,'' said Mr. Schofield, who is 21 years old now and is an apprentice plumber. He is not upset that his friends are swapping campus-life stories while he is fixing sinks. ''I'm learning a skill and I'm earning money,'' he said.

But many researchers and social scientists say self-esteem is being oversold. ''There is among academics a lack of consensus about how to define it and how to measure it,'' said Martin Ford, an associate professor of education at Stanford University who has done extensive research on self-esteem and confidence. ''Therefore, it's difficult to make strong statements about techniques or interventions to enhance self-esteem.''

Most skeptics say the principles of self-esteem can do no harm, but they add that they worry that supporters are promoting it at the expense of other social goals.

''We certainly are for self-esteem; it's a good thing for kids, particularly, to have confidence in themselves,'' said Gary Bauer, the president of the Family Research Council in Washington and a leading voice for conservative family values. ''We do feel, however, that there are a lot of odd things going on out there in the name of self-esteem. And in some cases, self-esteem degenerates into just another form of almost selfishness.''

Roger Wilkins, a professor of American history and culture at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., expressed another concern: ''For those born into or living in situations where there is no stability, or where the only successful people are criminals, self-esteem isn't going to do it for them.''

There is also a sense that the haste with which the idea is taking hold has spawned a gold-rush atmosphere in which people with dubious credentials - former convicts, say, or fashion models - are hanging out shingles as self-esteem specialists.

''It's not necessarily bad,'' said Dr. Ford of Stanford, who is a developmental and educational psychologist. ''The more nurturing and helpful people you have in life the better.

''But often those who do the best self-esteem promotion in this society are not those with specialized credentials, but those who are caring, concerned and competent parents, teachers and employers of society.''

Another concern is that self-esteem programs are papering over the friction that occurs in an increasingly diverse population with conflicting views, and even infringing on personal liberties.

When several California companies tried three years ago to motivate employees through meditation, self-hypnosis, inducements to trancelike states or instructions to visualize certain events, they were met with union resistance and threatened with lawsuits from employees who said the techniques were alien to their religious views.

''The new-age philosophy may have been contrary to an employee's own religious views or personal philosophies,'' said Curtis E. Plott, the executive vice president of the Society for Training and Development, an association of training professionals in Alexandria, Va. ''Employers are discovering, however, that self-esteem training that assists employees in recognizing their skills, dealing with their own limitations and understanding their emotional abilities to cope with stress, change and criticism is necessary because they are hiring from a limited professional labor pool, women, minorities and new immigrants, who may need help in enhancing their self-esteem.''

A survey of 200 companies among the Fortune 500 that was conducted last year by Mr. Plott's organization found that 42 were offering self-esteem training.

Black Americans, who many sociologists and psychologists say are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem because of racism, give self-esteem programs mixed reviews.

''I'm all for self-esteem,'' said Charles Joyner, 22, a student at Fordham University. Mr. Joyner, who is black, has written a paper on self-esteem among black men.

''But I'm concerned that some of the self-esteemers are imposing mainstream American values on our kids without stressing the African culture. So you end up with kids who don't think they are worth anything, unless they have a fancy car or gold jewelry.''

Some analysts connect the quest for self-esteem with economic and social trends that have seemed to make life in the United States both harsher and more materialistic.

''The materialism of the 1980's stemmed from a terrible vacuum of identity,'' said Laurence Shames, the author of ''The Hunger for More: Searching for Values in an Age of Greed'' (Times Books, 1989). ''Possessions can't provide meaning, a sense of identity,'' he said. ''And they certainly can't provide a solid base for self-esteem.''

Self-esteem grabbed headlines in 1986, when the California task force was alloted $735,000 in state money. At the time, many people dismissed it as a California fad. Garry Trudeau lampooned the group in his ''Doonesbury'' comic strip.

The concept, however, had played an important social role years before. In the Brown v. Board of Education case, which struck down segregation in public schools in 1954, the Supreme Court cited the ''dolls tests'' conducted by Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, the black sociologist and psychologist.

In the tests, young black children were shown both black and white dolls and asked which they preferred. A majority chose the white dolls. In its opinion, the Court said the children had ''definitely been harmed in the development of their personalities.''

For scholars, the self-esteem movement has roots that reach back more than a century. Dr. Donald Meyer, a professor of American history at Wesleyan University, traced the tradition of positive thinking to a period of psychological malaise after the Civil War and found its seeds in American Protestantism. Among the figures he included in his book ''The Positive Thinkers'' (Pantheon, 1965) are Mary Baker Eddy, Dale Carnegie and the Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale.

Today, some self-esteem exercises seem to echo the drills, complete with yoga techniques, prescribed in the ''success'' handbooks popular just after the turn of the century. In 1922, Dr. Emile Coue began national fads in England and the United States with his motto ''Day by day, in every way I get better and better.'' His work regained popularity in 1961, at the dawn of the current ''human potential'' movement. But for many the self-esteem concept remains a riddle. Were ninth graders at Grant Union High School in Sacramento, Calif., reading at a fifth-grade level because they had low self-esteem, or were their reading problems contributing to their poor self-image?

''I don't know the answer,'' said Richard Owen, the principal at Grant Union. ''But don't just say, 'They don't like themselves,' and that's it. Teach them how to read and write properly, and they'll feel better about themselves.''

photo: As part of a class in self-esteem in Sacramento, Calif., students give neck and shoulder massages to their fellows. (The New York Times/Terrence McCarthy) (pg. C10)